We have finally, with heavy hearts, dragged ourselves away from Les Mathevies. We had decided our next port of call would be near Carcassone. We had both come across a campsite a wee bit out of the town but on a bus/train route that had good reviews so headed for that. Despite knowing nowhere would match our time at Les Mathevies, this place was, well, a bit odd. The village could, and should, have been really nice - narrow streets with fantastic medieval architecture, a beautiful ruin of an Abbey and a natural thermal spa to mention a few of it's attractions. But it really didn't have a nice feel to it. The campsite, to give it credit, would have been fine if we had come across it earlier(especially with the backdrop of the abbey), but again, we were comparing it unfavourably. Mind you, the fact that it had a good, modern sanitary block with nice showers was definitely undermined by the lack of toilet seats (what is it with the French and no seats on the toilet bowls??) and, even worse, no toilet paper. This seemed even worse given that it was run by a British couple! And we realised that the nearby road was very loud at night - again, admittedly, this was probably magnified by our previous week in glorious silence, but we still realised our expectations had changed a bit.
The first morning our feelings of gloom were compounded when the bells of the Abbey started chiming at 7am! The campsite had rules that there were no cars or noise before 8am - unless you are the bells of the abbey, it would seem! Still, it got us up and about. So Andy went for a run up a nearby hill (three miles of struggle up, three miles of fun back down!), and Chris decided to run along the cycle path that followed the river. Well, she would have done if she could find it! She missed having Maisie there to ponder the why's and wherefore's of this with, so pouted all the more.
We then went into Carcassone. We originally tried to get the bus, but were mislead by a bus stop that, erm, the bus didn't stop at (as previously mentioned, it was a slightly odd place). So we took the van instead and luckily found a great place to park. The main part of Carcassone again could have been lovely, with old building and lovely architecture, but instead felt mostly run down and deserted. However, the old, walled part, of the town was a different matter and was almost fairy-tale like. We spent a good bit of time wandering around there and felt better about it all.
The next day, the weather wasn't great and Andy was coming down with a cold so didn't feel up to a long cycle. Chris had been thinking about trying to leave a day early and get our money back for the extra night, but in low season there is no-one at the campsite during the day which scuppered that idea. So instead we decided to go to see an old chateau a wee while away. Except it turned out to be 4 chateaux, each on a different hill peak, and they were brilliant! So a day that started off with a sigh and "What shall we do now, then" thoughts actually turned out to be really good. We were glad we stayed!
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